The head of Detroit's largest public employee union says he is happy with the tone of ongoing contract negotiations with the Bing administration, but he is not sure a deal will be completed by tomorrow's deadline.

"We're working hard at it," AFSCME Local 25 President Al Garrett said this morning on WJR-AM 760. "In fact, it looks promising that we may be able to get an agreement. But nothing's final until it's final."

With Detroit's general fund deficit approaching $200 million, Treasurer Andy Dillon has said city leaders should have a deal in place by early February if they hope to avoid direct state intervention.

Listen: Al Garrett

And Mayor Dave Bing, who previously said the city could run out of cash by April, has called for unions to agree to a series of concessions by the end of this month as he looks to prove the city does not need an emergency manager.

While he believes a deal is likely, Garrett said Bing's deadline will not be the deciding factor.

"I don't know that we're operating based on an arbitrary deadline proposed by anyone," he said. "What we're trying to do is wrestle through the difficulties of this and get an agreement out of it. The deadline is certainly on our mind but it's not the uppermost thing for getting a deal."

While neither side will discuss details of the ongoing negotiations, Bing originally asked unions to accept a 10 percent pay cut, new work rules, pension reform and increased health care contributions.

The city is negotiating with 48 seperate bargaining units, and while police and fire reportedly have resisted the pay cut, Garrett believes they will come to the table.

"This is a different day," he said. "There's much more on the table than just a single round of negotiations. It is, in fact, the question of whether the City of detroit will exist or not as we know it. We fully expect them to do the appropriate thing."

Listen to the full WJR interview with host Frank Beckmann in the embedded player above.